1. Brian Gray has launched a new endeavor. He is bringing back the Leaf brand and acquired all the non-baseball brands from Razor.
2. The Strasburg Heritage
will be very difficult to get. We got to the show around 5 p.m. and the line was already more than 100 people long. Only 100 were given out on the first day. However, a bit disappointing is the centering was not good on many of these cards. We saw one and the centering was off and after speaking to some folks, they all said the same thing.Dave and Adam’s has a sign saying they will pay $80 for any Strasburg redemption.
3. There is so much vintage here. I don’t like it. There are many people who collect vintage and there should be vintage at the show, but the number of vintage is way more than the number of modern cards. This is not a good thing for someone like me. I’m looking for Derek Jeter and Kevin Kouzmanoff cards.
4. Here’s a crazy story: A person many of us are friends with on Twitter had a large shipment of 2010 Bowman cards off the get graded and got lost in the mail. This person had somewhere between 40-50 cards in that order and some very low-numbered cards including a superfractor.
Two members who are volunteering for FCB walked passed a booth with lots of 2010 Bowman and, amazingly, sitting in the case were two of these cards, including said superfractor.
The guys called out the dealer and told them exactly what happened and how this person lost their cards in the mail. He said he bought it off eBay, but eventually gave in and handed two cards over, a superfractor and red refractor.
Craziness.
The centering on my Strasburg is pretty terrible too. Hopefully that DA sign is still there tomorrow. I'd sell mine for $80 in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteThink I might have seen you two today, but wasn't sure. There were more ladies there than I had been expecting.
Totally enjoying The National reports so far. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThe Leaf promotion/redemption offer is pretty terrible. I hope Leaf succeeds, as increased companies in any market will be beneficial.
ReplyDeleteYou should find the crazy, tossing around modern cards guy table. He had amazing stuff barfed all over the place.
Ditto on the Strasburg. Ditto also to Beardy's stalker thing.
What grading company were the cards being sent to? BGS?
ReplyDeleteConsidering the Hobby's Boom years of the 1980s were fueled by Baby Boomers looking to buy back those 1950s and '60s cards their mothers threw out...I'm not surprised to see most sellers doing vintage.
ReplyDeleteThe hobby really doesn't seem to care about getting new blood. Packs are mostly priced out of the range of kids (and why not? When adults have no aversion to tossing dollars after cards, why bother with the kids' pocket change?). Rather than focusing on building a future client base, the Hobby seems to be content shooting themselves in the foot for the instant gratification.
It's a shame, too. During the Hobby Boom years, there was a very healthy base collecting current-year material...that's not the case anymore, and it might come back to hurt sellers later.
I'm with sruchris in wanting to know more about those "lost" Bowman cards. That's an amazing story that sounds like it could include an element of out-and-out theft.
ReplyDeleteIs this Twitter friend going to elaborate upon this anecdote?
The cards were being sent to a middle party to send them to BGS. They apparently got lost on the way to the middleman, who I've been told is a very respectable person.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather not give out the person's info unless they said it was OK.